As far as the manufacture is concerned, the horizontal cleavage lines across the Sphinx's face suggest a molding process.
If so, the pieces of the face must have been molded (probably not at that same site) and then transported to the proper height, possibly by piling plenty of sand around the lower body of the statue and dragging in each section to the head's location.
The original stony head would have to be considerably thinner that it is today, maybe just a rocky spike, but the apparently natural pose of a reclining lion below it could have seemed compelling enough to make an enterprising Pharaoh try to complete the (God-given) desert statue.
If the head has an inner core made of a different rock, this could be ascertained nowadays by ultrasound echoing. But the head could also turn out to be only one piece of stuck-together hotizontal sections. It would not be hard to measure which possibility is better backed by the technical evidence.
The lower folds of the nemes, if they are also molded, are more likely to be adhered to an older stone, so there are probably better clues to be found echo-sounding the (more damaged) lower portions.
The head sections could also be sculpted "in the raw", from large stones of high tonnage but that seems unlikely logistically. Molding each section from a sculpted negative shape seems much easier (tho it still would be hard enough to qualify as an engineering-artistic AE Marvel).
The molding material would probably be the same Khnum-revealed polymeric cement used to buld the Pyramid's blocks, mixed up from burnt Nile mud and precious Sinai crushed stones, with a base of fine sand from the Giza plateau.
Some old organic remains are likely to be contained within the cracks of the broken facial pieces. Therefore, plucking out an assortment of different-looking "grains of sand" could yield tiny fragments of wood, bone or what-have-you, suceptible to be C-14 tested.
Birds, worms or bacteria from recent millenia might make up most of the tested finds, but there would still be an oldest date to be contemplated. My guess is that the original work would point to the IV Dynasty.

Well, that gets us to the depiction puzzle: who is it?
I personally fail to see the work of many hands re-touching the face through different ages.
The head is relatively small only because it was probably inconvenient (or impossible) to set up a larger mass on that neck. But that face belongs to a recognizable individual, and all the locals at the time would have known perfectly who it was meant to depict.
Geometrically, the head's position in the plateau fits exactly with the center of the Grat Pyramid, as the hypothenuse end-points of a sacred right triangle with ultra-precise cubit dimensions (round figures in the hundreds, proportional to 3:4:5). Both sides of its ninety-degree angle point exactly South (toward the head) and West (toward the pyramid's center).
This not only suggests, but seems to imply that both structures are linked by the same constructive geometric will. Who built the last one, then?
If the Sphinx was already an ancient suggestion of a recling animal (natural or not), the building of the Great Pyramid would have been part of a program that included adapting that existing large scuplture to the Pharaoh's needs.
Therefore, that builder must have been Khufu, known to have built the Great Pyramid.
The Khafre causeway, misleading and oblique, then was just a case of ancient usurpation. And Khafre does not look like the Sphinx, except in a family-related type of resemblance.
But then, so does Djedefre and in a more remote way, Menkaure.
There are many visual angles from which that Sphinx's face can be pondered. Each time, if one mentally assumes the existence of a nose (but not its shape), an impassive but strong-willed young individual is conjured up, gazing at the sunrise horizon. Is this Khufu?
Now, if the face from the ivory statuette of Khufu is similarly considered, that over-fortyish portrayed individual seems to have been seen somewhere.
Bring him mentally back to his early twenties and the 'click' happens: excellent coincidence!
Khufu must have bult the Great Pyramid and shaped the face of the Sphinx to his (young) likeness, using in both cases similar formulas for mixing the miracle concrete. But these two points owe their existence to the unknown third one. Maybe the position of the straight angle coincided with some important point of Khufu's Valley Temple.
The molding process cannot be determined with certainty, as it remains possible that the whole sculpting job was worked out entirely in situ. If so, it becomes possible to search for microscopic diferential sagging of different portions of the face, as the clay was being handled from a softer initial state into a harder final condition.
The anatomic postioning of the bone structures from both faces can also be goniometrically analyzed, to then compare statistically the coincidences so measured with other fits, such as Djedefre, Khafre and Menkaure.
The end result ought to be an acceptable restored 3-D Sphinx face, to be considered as the official original face of Khufu.
We need not be concerned with the older attempts to shoehorn Khafre's face into fitting the Sphinx, producing pathetically coarse results which unfortunately are sometimes presented as a "reconstruction"._________________Truthfulness may be relative, but can be kept very high when faithfully recording past events just how they would be seen from a visiting time machine, or as close as possible

As far as the manufacture is concerned, the horizontal cleavage lines across the Sphinx's face suggest a molding process.
If so, the pieces of the face must have been molded (probably not at that same site) and then transported to the proper height, possibly by piling plenty of sand around the lower body of the statue and dragging in each section to the head's location.
The original stony head would have to be considerably thinner that it is today, maybe just a rocky spike, but the apparently natural pose of a reclining lion below it could have seemed compelling enough to make an enterprising Pharaoh try to complete the (God-given) desert statue.
If the head has an inner core made of a different rock, this could be ascertained nowadays by ultrasound echoing. But the head could also turn out to be only one piece of stuck-together hotizontal sections. It would not be hard to measure which possibility is better backed by the technical evidence.
The lower folds of the nemes, if they are also molded, are more likely to be adhered to an older stone, so there are probably better clues to be found echo-sounding the (more damaged) lower portions.
The head sections could also be sculpted "in the raw", from large stones of high tonnage but that seems unlikely logistically. Molding each section from a sculpted negative shape seems much easier (tho it still would be hard enough to qualify as an engineering-artistic AE Marvel).
The molding material would probably be the same Khnum-revealed polymeric cement used to buld the Pyramid's blocks, mixed up from burnt Nile mud and precious Sinai crushed stones, with a base of fine sand from the Giza plateau.
Some old organic remains are likely to be contained within the cracks of the broken facial pieces. Therefore, plucking out an assortment of different-looking "grains of sand" could yield tiny fragments of wood, bone or what-have-you, suceptible to be C-14 tested.
Birds, worms or bacteria from recent millenia might make up most of the tested finds, but there would still be an oldest date to be contemplated. My guess is that the original work would point to the IV Dynasty.

Well, that gets us to the depiction puzzle: who is it?
I personally fail to see the work of many hands re-touching the face through different ages.
The head is relatively small only because it was probably inconvenient (or impossible) to set up a larger mass on that neck. But that face belongs to a recognizable individual, and all the locals at the time would have known perfectly who it was meant to depict.
Geometrically, the head's position in the plateau fits exactly with the center of the Grat Pyramid, as the hypothenuse end-points of a sacred right triangle with ultra-precise cubit dimensions (round figures in the hundreds, proportional to 3:4:5). Both sides of its ninety-degree angle point exactly South (toward the head) and West (toward the pyramid's center).
This not only suggests, but seems to imply that both structures are linked by the same constructive geometric will. Who built the last one, then?
If the Sphinx was already an ancient suggestion of a recling animal (natural or not), the building of the Great Pyramid would have been part of a program that included adapting that existing large scuplture to the Pharaoh's needs.
Therefore, that builder must have been Khufu, known to have built the Great Pyramid.
The Khafre causeway, misleading and oblique, then was just a case of ancient usurpation. And Khafre does not look like the Sphinx, except in a family-related type of resemblance.
But then, so does Djedefre and in a more remote way, Menkaure.
There are many visual angles from which that Sphinx's face can be pondered. Each time, if one mentally assumes the existence of a nose (but not its shape), an impassive but strong-willed young individual is conjured up, gazing at the sunrise horizon. Is this Khufu?
Now, if the face from the ivory statuette of Khufu is similarly considered, that over-fortyish portrayed individual seems to have been seen somewhere.
Bring him mentally back to his early twenties and the 'click' happens: excellent coincidence!
Khufu must have bult the Great Pyramid and shaped the face of the Sphinx to his (young) likeness, using in both cases similar formulas for mixing the miracle concrete. But these two points owe their existence to the unknown third one. Maybe the position of the straight angle coincided with some important point of Khufu's Valley Temple.
The molding process cannot be determined with certainty, as it remains possible that the whole sculpting job was worked out entirely in situ. If so, it becomes possible to search for microscopic diferential sagging of different portions of the face, as the clay was being handled from a softer initial state into a harder final condition.
The anatomic postioning of the bone structures from both faces can also be goniometrically analyzed, to then compare statistically the coincidences so measured with other fits, such as Djedefre, Khafre and Menkaure.
The end result ought to be an acceptable restored 3-D Sphinx face, to be considered as the official original face of Khufu.
We need not be concerned with the older attempts to shoehorn Khafre's face into fitting the Sphinx, producing pathetically coarse results which unfortunately are sometimes presented as a "reconstruction".

Without accusing anyone of anything, but isn't the "this or that was molded" part of a theory about the construction of the pyramids?Which is considered to be a fringe theory here at Egyptian Dreams. Yes, it is, in the post above you even mention it To be honest, we have enough problems getting the truth on the table, even without fringe theories!

This goes towards the fringe theories. On the other hand, we always see the Romans as inventors of concrete and mortar (cement), but the A.E. had that knowledge also, long before the Romans. Now if you know how to make concrete and mortar, or bricks of clay, which were molded, one wouldn’t be surprised they tried it. Still, concrete and cement date from the New Kingdom, long after the Old Kingdom. So the theory doesn’t make sense._________________